Cabinet may approve spectrum sharing rules soon

NEW DELHI: Telecom Secretary Rakesh Garg has said that the inter-ministerial panel of Telecom Commission (TC) will be sending the guidelines on spectrum sharing soon to the Cabinet for final approval.

“We have finalised the view on spectrum-sharing and trading guidelines. We will try to send the norms to the Cabinet by the end of this month,” Telecom Secretary Rakesh Garg said after the meeting.

The guidelines will be sent to Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad first and after his approval a Cabinet note will be prepared, he added.

It should be noted here that earlier the panel of Telecom Commission, the highest decision making of Department of Telecom, had returned the recommendations of telecom regulator Trai on spectrum sharing, seeking further clarification.

Spectrum sharing will help telcos to share the unutilised airwaves with their peers in the same telecom circle.

Once trading of spectrum is allowed, then it will lead to efficient use of radio-waves by enabling telecom service providers that have a lower subscriber base or unutilised spectrum, to trade in it.

On July 21, 2014, the telecom regulator had recommended sharing of spectrum in the bands of 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz, 2300 MHz and 2500 MHz provided that both the licencees are having spectrum in the same band.

The regulator had suggested that even spectrum allocated at the old price of Rs 1,658 crore or assigned without auction should also be included in it so that companies could significantly reduce cost of providing mobile services.